After a long haul through the minor leagues, former MTSU and Siegel High pitcher gets chance with Colorado Rockies

As Ken Roberts prepared to make his Major League Baseball debut for the Colorado Rockies a week ago Sunday, all those he wanted to thank continually swirled through his head.

That was just part of the whirlwind for the former MTSU and Siegel High pitching ace, the 25th-round draft pick (770th overall) by the Rockies in 2010, after he learned around midnight two nights earlier that he was getting the call to come to "The Show" as a major leaguer.

Along with wife Katie, they were sitting in their apartment in Albuquerque, N.M., where Colorado has its triple-A team. That's the seventh minor league team in the Colorado minor-league system for which the left-hander had pitched while ascending the ranks.

"It was a little after midnight (a week ago Friday night)," Roberts said of learning the news of his promotion, "and we were about to go to bed. My manager at Albuquerque called and told me I needed to get my bags packed because I was headed to the big leagues."

"Katie may have been more excited than me. She was jumping up and down and crying. We packed what we could and flew to San Diego that next day."

But not before calling parents Janet and Ken Roberts back home in Murfreesboro at around 1:30 in the morning.

"Dad answered the phone," Roberts said, "and I told him to go wake up mom. He asked me if it was good news or bad news, and I told him to just go wake her up.

"She said that was great and they would be watching on television. I said, 'No, you're getting on a plane Saturday and heading to San Diego, too.' "

It didn't finally hit Roberts that he had indeed made it to the big leagues until he walked into the team's clubhouse and saw his jersey hanging in the locker and receiving congratulations from Rockies teammates, many of whom had played alongside him during several spring trainings and/or as teammates in the minor leagues.

"It was really surreal," Roberts said. "But it really hit me when I walked out onto the field in that big stadium wearing the uniform. That was the defining moment. I really wasn't that nervous when they called me from the bullpen to pitch on Sunday."

It didn't take long for Roberts to see action, pitching a scoreless eighth inning. Ironically, his first pitch as a major leaguer was caught by catcher Michael McKenry, the former Blue Raiders' catcher who departed MTSU in 2006 as Roberts was arriving in 2007.

"We have gotten to know each other and become friends," Roberts said of McKenry, "and he has helped me a ton with different pitch sequences. He has told me from day one that my stuff was good enough to pitch in the big leagues.

"He has been such a help, because he kept telling me that. He was such a confidence builder."

One of the first persons Roberts texted to relay the news and offer thanks was Siegel High baseball coach Craig Reavis. Roberts said if it wasn't for his high school coach, he may have never made it out high school as a pitcher to later shine at MTSU.

"I kind of had given up on pitching after my freshman year of high school," Roberts said. "My sophomore year, I didn't try out for pitching, but being a lefty, coach Reavis made me try out for pitching. He taught me the curve.

"Coach Reavis is the reason I am still pitching."

Being a good baseball player plus a left-handed pitcher, Reavis wasn't about to let Roberts slide into obscurity on a team that amazingly had 19 southpaws during Roberts' freshman year.

"Kenneth could throw it a little bit," Reavis said. "We were going to put him on the mound and see where it would go from there. He became our No. 1 pitcher for three years. He was good every time we put him on the mound."

But was it still good enough to land a scholarship on the collegiate level? Very few schools showed interested, and even former MTSU coach Steve Peterson and assistant Jim McGuire, now the Blue Raiders coach, wondered if Roberts could take the next step up.

MTSU eventually signed Roberts, who did little as a freshman while playing only seven games. As a sophomore, he went 5-5 with a 4.46 earned run average before having a breakout junior season by going 11-1 with a 3.04. That included beating Vanderbilt in the NCAA Louisville Regional.

He surprisingly didn't get drafted after the 2009 season, but rather dropped deep in the 2010 draft after going 4-6 with a 5.31 ERA in a so-so senior season.

"It is one of the most incredible stories, not only for MTSU, but just in general for somebody to come as far as he has come," McGuire said of Roberts. "He became such an invaluable person for our team with an unbelievable work ethic. He was on a mission from the day he got to Middle Tennessee."

Same can be said for Roberts working his way up the baseball food chain. From rookie ball to triple-A since 2010, he has tossed just over 300 innings with a stellar 2.37 ERA, striking out 6.8 batters per nine innings. Overall as a minor leaguer, Roberts has a 21-8 record in 199 games.

"When I got drafted, I planned to give it all I could as long as I could," Roberts said, "and if I didn't make it, I would go back to graduate school and go on from there. I know now it's about making the pitches and performing well to stay here."

Greg Pogue is former executive sports editor at The DNJ. E-mail him at grpogue@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @ThePoguester.